No Good Deed
"No Good Deed" is the twenty-second episode of season 1, and overall the twenty-second produced hour of Person of Interest. It originally aired on May 10, 2012. Synopsis New York, NY 2009 Nathan Ingram walks across the 35th floor of the IFT Plaza, past rows of servers toward Harold Finch, who is tinkering with one of the servers. They discuss the fact that the Machineisto be turned over to the government the next day. Ingram comments that he is glad to be rid of the Machine and corrects Finch when he comments about the lives saved, stating that "countless relevant" lives have been saved. Nathan comments that everyone is relevant to someone and that Harold would know that if he had someone in his life. Nathan informs Harold that he is concerned about the fact that Harold has been working with the machine, watching other peoples lives, for so many years and urges him to invest some time on his own life. Harold implies that he has spent some time on his life, but Nathan, laughing with Finch, informs Harold that he would know if Harold had someone special. Later, Nathan meets Alicia Corwin in a bar to discuss the transfer of the Machine. Nathan inquires about the facility for the Machine and asks about how the information is to be disseminated. Corwin reassures him that the information will not be able to be tracked back to the Machine. Nathan comments that only eight people know about the Machine and Corwin, visibly shocked, corrects him and states that only seven people know about the Machine. Ingram, realizing his mistake, tries to laugh it off, but comments that Corwin seems unsettled. Alicia comments that she will be glad to be done with the Machine and return to her 'day job' and when asked about it, states that it is classified. After the meeting with Corwin, a visibly shaken Ingram meets again with Finch at the IFT building. Nathan informs Harold of his concerns about Corwin's actions during their meeting and asks if Harold has a contingency plan if they ever discover that the government is misusing the Machine. Harold tells him that they need to trust the Machine and states that a back door could compromise it. His voice cracking, he tells Nathan that it would be "very bad" if someone else found out how to access the Machine. Reminding Nathan that he used to be a talented engineer and should know about the risk of a back door; Harold then turns the Machine off, to ready it for transit, and silently leaves the building. In the early hours of the next day, a determined looking Ingram, restarts the Machine, is recognized and begins a new additional core program: Contingency. May 7, 2012 Reese is tailing Finch down the street, when Finch's phone beeps. After looking at the cell phone, he picks up the receiver of a nearby pay phone, listening. Finch then calls Reese to advise him that they have a new number and to meet. At the library, Reese is looking at "Crime and Punishment" as Finch explains about the latest person of interest, a financial analyst. Finch, annoyed at Reese's seeming inattention asks if Reese is 'following him' and Reese repeats that they are discussing a financial analyst. Reese informs Finch that he knows that Finch did not get the number while at the library and wants to know more about how the Machine communicates with Finch, commenting that Finch would want their work to continue if something happened to Harold. Harold tells John that he has a contingency, but give Reese no other information. Reese begins his surveillance of Henry Peck, the newest number from the Machine. Reese is unable to get any WiFi or phone signals from Peck's office and as Finch is unable to access Peck's email, voice mail or internet accounts, plants a wireless 'bug' on Peck when he leaves the office. When Peck returns to the building, Reese follows him inside and observes him walking past the secretary into a locked room. Reese attempts to get past the secretary as well, who politely stops him and reaches under the table for a holstered .45 caliber pistol before advising him to leave. Reese now realizes that Peck is really a spy, working in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). In order to access the facility, Finch hides a camera and transceiver inside a coffee maker, using the building's wiring to transmit the signals. Reese and Finch then discover that the office is a listening station for the NSA and that Peck is actually a intelligence analyst. While Reese is watching Peck that evening, the police show up to arrest him for drugs that were found in his apartment. Finch realizes that there is someone else listening when the bug has feedback and Reese sees someone leaving the area, but loses him. They now realize that Peck is being set up. May 8, 2012 Back at the library, Reese notes that Finch has several copies of the same magazine and copies down the lot number of the cup that held Finch's tea, that he pulled form the trash. Detective Carter calls Reese with arrest information about Peck the fact that he had a speeding ticket expunged after preparing a 78 page brief for the judge. Finch is able to obtain video of someone entering Peck's apartment. Reese, listening on the coffee pot bug, hears that Peck is fired. Peck continues to try to contact the Deputy Director of the NSA. When Peck arrives back at his apartment, he is attacked, but Reese, after fighting with the intruder, realizes that someone in the government is trying to kill Peck. Finch using the wireless bug to track Peck down overhears the conversation between Peck and the NSA director, is shocked to discover that Peck has been asking questions about the Machine, although Peck is unaware of this. He informs Reese that Peck is being threatened because of him. Reese and Finch continue to follow Peck and overhear a conversation with Alicia Corwin in which she tells him about Sibilance and tells him to run. Peck ditches his phone and the bug and empties his bank accounts and gives away his credit cards to throw off his trackers. Reese tells Finch that Peck is being followed by a 3 man team, probably a Army black ops squad, and that he would look for Peck by targeting his needs, Finch is able to track Peck to a cash only hotel with internet access and realizes, through Peck's internet searches that he is planning to break into the NSA. The black ops team following Peck check in with their handler, a person at the Office of Special Council, and are told to 'get it done'. Reese and the team track Peck to the NSA, where he proceeds to copy reports that he had completed. Reese is able to rescue Peck from the assassins, and Peck deliberately attacks a police car and is arrested. He is taken to the 8th precinct, where while talking with Fusco, comes to the realization that the only way the government could have the information that they do is to have a Machine. After Fusco leaves the interrogation room, a disguised Reese releases Peck and takes him out of the building. Peck calls the Office of Special Council with a stolen cell phone, giving away their location. Reese tells Peck that there is no one safe to talk to. The taxi that John is driving is attacked and set on fire. Reese drags Peck out of the burning cab, just as they are attacked by the Army assassin. Peck escapes, but Reese is able to determine from the dying man that he knows nothing about why he was hunting Peck. May 9, 2012 Peck is able to make contact with a reporter and a meeting is arranged. Peck is surprised when Finch shows up instead and confirms that there is a Machine as Peck suspected. Finch tells Peck to stop asking questions for both of their safety and gives him a passport, plane tickets and a card to a bank account in order to disappear. Finch tells Peck that knowing about the Machine has cost him something that he values "more than my own life", and that Peck should go and live his own life. When Finch is asked how he knows all this information, he tells Peck that he built the machine. Unknown to the both of them, Corwin is at a nearby table, listening in on the conversation with a parabolic microphone. She is visibly frightened when she hears Finch state that he built the Machine. May 10, 2012 At the police station, Detective Terney gives Carter a piece of paper from the burned out cab with the only word legible, Sibliance. Reese is at a coffee cart in a park, where he has tracked the purchase of the cup he had earlier retrieved from Finch's trash. Just as he is about to question the barista, he sees a truck delivering the magazines that he noted at the library to a nearby home. He approaches the home and knocks on the door, which is opened by a woman. Reese introduces himself as Detective Stills and enters the house on the pretense of a disturbance call. Once inside he sees a picture of Harold and the woman, Grace, an artist who draws for the magazine. She informs him that Finch was once her fiance, but that she lost him in an accident 2 years ago. A sympathetic Reese tells her that he is sorry for her loss. Upon leaving the house, he sees Finch seated on a bench in the park in the distance. They talk about Grace and a visibly saddened Finch informs Reese that he had to protect Grace by leaving her behind. Finch tells Reese that he feels that he was lucky, that he "had four years of happiness. Some people only get four days". He limps away, leaving behind a stunned Reese. Trivia * In the interrogation room when Peck talks about the Machine, a disbelieving Fusco asks him if he wanted "a soda or something". When Reese comes to pick up Henry Peck from the interrogation room he can be seen holding a soda can. * Henry Peck's 'box' changes from white to yellow after Finch confirms the presence of the Machine and gives him the passport with his new identity. * Carrie Preston (Grace) is Michael Emerson's (Finch) wife. Preston also appeared on Lost as the mother of Emerson's character, Benjamin Linus. * A SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) is a room proofed against many forms of eavesdropping or leakage of classified information. One main precaution often mentioned in the show is for hardening against radio communication, which in this case Finch defeats using a bugged coffee maker. A point of fact, if you ever wondered what is inside a SCIF, It is essentially the following: Getting use of such a secure room is no small feat. To prevent eavesdroppers from picking up top-secret conversations, a typical SCIF has film on the windows, walls fitted with soundproof steel plates and white-noise makers embedded in the ceiling. For further information check out this salon article (www.salon.com/2007/05/07/tenet_money/). : In the NCIS episode entitled "Pyramid", there was a graphical representation of the capabilities of a SCIF room. Production notes Bloopers and continuity errors *The pile of "The Boroughs" magazines in the Library turns 180 degrees when Reese flicks through it in a close up and the camera cuts to the next scene. *The note with the lot number of Finch's tea cup manufacturer on the shipping invoice Reese used to track down the coffee stand is slightly different from the note Reese wrote in the Library. *In the original timeline, Finch gets up and leaves right after he says "Because I built it." In the flashback at the end of the episode, Finch remains seated. Music "I'm Afraid of America" by David Bowie - During the taxi ambush/End of episode. The song is a reference to the video clip of the original song, which involves New York City taxi, the taxi being shot at, as well as paranoia and not being able to trust anyone. The reference to Reese is coincidental ("Johnny's in America"). Analysis Themes * Finch had to fake his own death and leave Grace behind in order to protect her * Finch keeping his relationship with Grace from Nathan and keeping his involvement with the Machine from Grace. * Peck receives a new identity in order to disappear. Reese uses an alias to enter Henry Peck's office, and later he uses Detective Stills' badge to introduce himself to Grace. Finch poses as a delivery man to hide the bugged coffee maker in Peck's office. Cultural references *The title is taken from the quote, "No good deed goes unpunished." **The quote could refer to Ingram's insertion of a backdoor program to the Machine, for which Finch and Reese are currently "punished" for. **In addition, the building of the Machine led to Henry Peck's firing and near-death experience. **The creation of the Machine (good deed), lead to the death and injury (punishment) of Ingram and Finch by the people protecting the Machine. * Reese is perusing Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1866 novel "Crime and Punishment", a novel focussing on the moral dilemmas of a poor ex-student who kills a pawnbroker for cash and believes that with the money he can do good deeds to remedy the crime he committed. Literary techniques *There are several types of flashbacks in this episode. The regular type showing to what could be seen as a character's memory (Finch working with Ingram on wrapping up the Machine for transport), and another one that provides additional information or background information without being a specific memory of a character in that very moment. (Ingram creating the Contingency, or Ingram meeting with Alicia) *This episode also uses a new type of flashback that is essentially a 'rewind' back to an earlier time in the episode. The flashback scene is also shown in color, not the muted, grayish of previously seen flashbacks. Quotes *"I've never regretted building the machine. I didn't fully realize the personal cost. I'm good with computers. But people... well, people other than Grace, have always been a mystery to me." -Finch *"If knowing about the machine is like a virus, that makes me patient zero." -Finch *"I was lucky. I had four years of happiness. Some people only get four days." -Finch *"If something ever happens, I have a ...contingency." -Finch *Peck: Please just listen.They've taken my job, ruined my life. Now I know why. This is the proof. These are six reports I wrote for the NSA, and six covert actions based on those reports.In each case, a single name gets added to what I wrote, and each time, that name turns out to be the key to stopping a major terrorist attack. Six for six. The only way to be that accurate is with illegal surveillance on a massive scale. Then there's this, "Sibilance" is an internal audit of the NSA intranet. It's totally routine-- Until they find signals hidden just beyond the shannon limit. It should just be static, but there was data. Someone is sneaking just as much data out as the NSA is taking in. To scan through all that, you need an organization ten times our size. It's more than any human-- Oh, my God, they actually built it. After 9/11, the government wanted a computer system-- A machine-- That could watch everyone and everything, catch terrorists before they strike. They tried with trailblazer, TIA, stellar wind. They-- they all failed. But if I'm right, then someone really built the damn thing, and it's watching us right now. Fusco: Okay, you want a soda or something? (Two Items: (1) The Shannon Limit is a concept in Information Theory which states formulaically the maximum rate at which data can be transmitted without error; With respect to the above statement the implication is that there is some protocol that has the ability to transmit at a faster rate without error, which seem impossible by contemporary standards. (2) TIA, or Total Information Awareness, was a program promoted during the George W. Bush, by the Department of Defense, which was a massive data mining progam that can "detect, classify and identify foreign terrorists" by analyzing commercial transactions and private communication, which means creating a "risk profile" using any conceivable record imaginable such as financial, educational, travel and medical records, as well as criminal and other governmental records which is subjected to said analysis. By definition, transactional data refers any sort of interaction between person-to person or person-to-computer, such as web searches, as well as bank transfers, credit-card reciepts and travel records , call logs and so on and so forth .It was eventually disbanded due to privacy issues, & parts of this program were reincorporated into other highly classified projects. Trailblazer was a failed but ambitious NSA program which was suppose to collect data from cell phones, e-mail, text-messages , fiber-optic switches and other modern communication technologies & translate in real-time, a keyword searchable plain-text or audio sample of any relevant findings. It was suppose to "connect the dots", or identify new patterns of activity or connections among people whose communications are intercepted ,so that it can be visualized in a readily-understable link-analysis chart for instance, and archived into a database as well as forwarded to the appropriate analysts, who for the first time could have followed up with their own searches of the database. The reason why this program needed to be realized was unlike the ECHELON program, which is still an active program, whose purpose is to monitor foreign civilian telephone, fax and data traffic as well radio and satellite communication by filtering information via origination and dictionary search based on subjects of interest, the collections required of Trailblazer has to cope with the deluge of information brought to the fore due to the prevalance of smartphones and mobile computing. Also, due to this information overload, criteria had to be established to pare the data to a managable level. To sum up the failure of the program was due a) vague, shifting and balloning priorities demanded by various NSA divisions, or "mission creep" b) imposition of "structured query" format for data, think google search c) ill-defined data retention period d) Infrastructure, or computing equipment itself could not cope with the demands of the program e) politcal pressure to prevent the next 9/11 prolonged the life of the failed project f) incompetence g) mismanagement h) cost overruns, or poor book-keeping. Finally, the Stellar WInd program, is NSA answer to cloud computing. Its jewel in the crown is a datacenter being constructed in Bluffdale, Utah which archives and analyzes electronic communications derived a vast array of satellites, clandestine posts at U.S. embassies, ground-based listening stations, underwater cables and military airplanes, ships and submarines. It will also acquire data from the "deepnet" or the "Invisible Web", think databases, which when queried automatically discards its output without storing the results. Moreover, any encrypted communications will serve as a dataset to high-speed supercomputers which will run brute-force attacks on the keys used to encrypt. If the code-breaking is deemed successful, the decrypted information could serve as a Rosetta stone on higher-ordered encrypted data. ) 122 122